Southwest Suburbs: A Mix Of Industry, Historic Shops

Residents of the southwest suburbs have learned to take their time, lay back and take things easy. They have to.

No rapid transit lines wing their way southwest. No hourly commuter train rushes through the heart of the southwest suburbs. No Crosstown Expressway bustles motorists to and from the Loop.

By some standards, the southwest suburbs are inaccessible. But that sits just fine with the quarter million residents of the two dozen cities and villages.

For them, accessibility means being close to the forest preserves of Palos, the golf courses of Orland or the open fields of Homer. Being close to the big city is just a minor convenience.

From Bedford Park`s industrial parks on the north to Frankfort/Mokena`s quaint shops on the south and from tiny Crestwood on the east to historic Lemont on the west, the southwest suburbs sport an environmental mix ranging from out-of-the-way country charm to big-city neighborhood togetherness.

``Any type of housing or any quality of life that people are looking for

--from houses of $50,000 to estates of $1 million--they can find in the southwest suburbs,`` said Gerald Bennet, mayor of Palos Hills and chairman of the 20-member Southwest Council of Local Governments.

``Our growth has been slower than most of the other areas of the suburbs, but people are finally beginning to realize what we have here,`` he said.

``We`ve got the resources, it`s not difficult to get around and we have some first of their kind in the state intergovernmental cooperative programs. Now we`ll be one of the fastest growth areas.``

The Palos area is the heart of the southwest suburbs, both geographically and figuratively. Palos Hills, Heights and Park run the social and economic gamut, their housing styles and family incomes reflecting the range that is available in the rest of the southwest suburbs.

But it is the forest preserves, more than 14,000 acres surrounding the three communities, that are the big attraction for Palos residents and the thousands of visitors each year.

``This is wild, undeveloped land,`` said Ralph Thornton, forest preserve district naturalist. ``We`re not a park district; there are no swing sets or slides. Our whole focus is nonmotorized activities. You can escape from cabin fever. You can get out, exercise, bird watch, look at animal tracks and read the story of what the animals are doing.``

If Palos is the heart of the southwest suburbs, then Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park are the gateway. Both resemble Southwest Side city

neighborhoods as much as they resemble traditional suburbs. The Irish pubs along Western Avenue and the strip shops along 95th Street are just an extension of their counterparts in the city.

The growth of Oak Lawn, the most populous suburb south of the Stevenson Expressway with 60,000 residents, was especially fueled in the 1950s and `60s by city dwellers moving to the suburbs in the postwar housing boom. One custom that was imported from the city and sticks to this day is the way Oak Lawn residents define their neighborhoods by the numerous Roman Catholic parishes that much of life in the suburbs revolves around.

Evergreen Park, settled in the last century by hard-working Dutch truck farmers, remains a predominantly white, blue-collar suburb today. Like many city neighborhoods, the brick bungalow dominates Evergreen Park`s streets.

While most of the village is residential, 95th Street supplies a commercial punch. Evergreen Park boasts one of the first suburban shopping malls, Evergreen Plaza at Western Avenue and 95th Street, built in 1952 and remodeled several times over the years. The 135-store mall is prospering, according to village officials, and sales tax revenues to the village coffers continue to increase.

Farther west on 95th Street is one of the suburbs` newest malls, the Chicago Ridge Mall at 95th and Ridgeland Avenue. A hard-fought annexation battle allowed Chicago Ridge to harvest a piece of 95th Street, perhaps the southwest suburbs` most vital roadway.

Just before 95th Street sinks into the forest preserves of the west, Hickory Hills squeezes out the last commercial development from 95th Street. A stereotypical post-World War II suburb, almost all of Hickory Hills` split-levels and ranches have been built in the last 30 years.

The city also won an annexation struggle with neighboring Palos Hills to control development of the former Hickory Hills Golf Club, which will be turned into a 157-acre mix of commercial and residential uses at the corner of 95th and Robert Road.

Worth, one of the smallest southwest suburbs with a population of 12,000 within its 2.5 square miles, may be one of the better known. Its water tower, which thousands of motorists pass each day on the Tri-State Tollway, proclaims Worth ``The Friendly Village,`` a slogan that can be put to the test by anyone venturing to its downtown, at 111th Street and Harlem Avenue.